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New York Times, Guardian support Edward Snowden, catch backlash: A Closer Look (poll)

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Former National Security Agency systems analyst Edward Snowden should receive clemency, according to the editorial boards of the New York Times and the Guardian in London.
(Associated Press file photo)

The problem for Snowden is he broke the law by stealing and then releasing the documents. He is facing federal charges, including two violations of the Espionage Act, for his actions. Snowden left the United States in May and has been living in Russia since June.

"I already won. As soon as the journalists were able to work, everything that I had been trying to do was validated. Because, remember, I didn't want to change society. I wanted to give society a chance to determine if it should change itself. All I wanted was for the public to be able to have a say in how they are governed," he said. "That is a milestone we left a long time ago. Right now, all we are looking at are stretch goals."

&lt;a href="http://polldaddy.com/poll/7687657/"&gt;What do you think should happen with Edward Snowden?&lt;/a&gt;

Considering the enormous value of the information he has revealed, and the abuses he has exposed, Mr. Snowden deserves better than a life of permanent exile, fear and flight. He may have committed a crime to do so, but he has done his country a great service. It is time for the United States to offer Mr. Snowden a plea bargain or some form of clemency that would allow him to return home, face at least substantially reduced punishment in light of his role as a whistle-blower, and have the hope of a life advocating for greater privacy and far stronger oversight of the runaway intelligence community.

Mr. Snowden gave classified information to journalists, even though he knew the likely consequences. That was an act of some moral courage. Presidents - from Franklin Roosevelt to Ronald Reagan - have issued pardons. The debate that Mr. Snowden has facilitated will no doubt be argued over in the U.S. supreme court. If those justices agree with Mr. Obama's own review panel and Judge Richard Leon in finding that Mr. Snowden did, indeed, raise serious matters of public importance which were previously hidden (or, worse, dishonestly concealed), is it then conceivable that he could be treated as a traitor or common felon? We hope that calm heads within the present administration are working on a strategy to allow Mr. Snowden to return to the U.S. with dignity, and the president to use his executive powers to treat him humanely and in a manner that would be a shining example about the value of whistleblowers and of free speech itself.

"Their editorial today and their whole pattern over the last several years, they've really made themselves a blame-America-first rag as far as I'm concerned, and why we exalt The New York Times is beyond me," the New York Republican said on Fox News. "They go out of their way to be apologists for terrorists and go after those in law enforcement and military who are trying to win this war." King, who has long been a defender and proponent of the National Security Agency, called the editors "a disgrace" and said he wishes they "cared more about America than they did about the rights of terrorists' appeasers."

Snowden gets no sympathy from Ruth Marcus of the Washington Post, who describes him as "insufferable" and says living in Russia has not helped him appreciate the freedoms Americans enjoy:

... If Snowden is such a believer in the Constitution, why didn't he stick around to test the system the Constitution created and deal with the consequences of his actions? The harder question, because the cost-benefit analysis is inherently both opaque and subjective, concerns the actions themselves. Is Snowden's massive theft justified by the degree of governmental intrusion he unveiled; the importance of the public discussion he provoked; the systemic shortcomings, if not outright failures, that both eroded adequate oversight and short-circuited the possibility of public debate absent his intervention? On the other, even more unknowable side of the ledger is the lasting damage to U.S. security from having its capabilities exposed for the United States' enemies to see. Your assessment might be different. My scale weighs against Snowden.

The really important point is that people in Washington continuously make excuses for those in power when they break the law. Ruth Marcus was one of the leaders in 2008 saying that Bush officials that torture people shouldn't be prosecuted, they should be protected. She praised and protected FBI agents in the '70s who entered people's homes without warning and were criminally prosecuted, saying they shouldn't have been prosecuted. That's what people in Washington do. They would never call on someone like James Clapper, who got caught lying to Congress, which is a felony, to be prosecuted. They only pick on people who embarrass the government and the administration to which they are loyal, like Edward Snowden. It's not about the rule of law.

For his part, Snowden has made it clear that he would prefer to come home. And he should be able to do so without spending his remaining days behind bars. ... That doesn't mean he should go scot-free. Snowden did break the law. A plea bargain involving a less-than-draconian stint in the slammer would strike an appropriate balance for a figure who, polarizing or not, has done a substantial service for his country.

The concepts of pardon and clemency are part our system precisely because there are instances when applying rules we've generally decided upon would be unjust and counterproductive. They are meant to be used judiciously, on an ad hoc basis, in what are clearly exceptional circumstances. Snowden's leak meets those tests. Urging clemency for Snowden is not a radical case against our existing system of rules -- it is an acknowledgment that, like all rules, ours are imperfect.

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